Fifty years ago and counting...
We've been watching a documentary about the year 1966 this evening - lots of nostalgia there. It was a year in which a lot of things changed for me - I passed my 11+, went to grammar school, moved house, learned about a lot of things that passed me by before that. The programme also reminded me of a comment kazzy_cee made on my last post, so I thought I'd fill in the gaps a little.
I lived in the county of Staffordshire all my young life. I was born in Cannock, quite literally in the workhouse, which had been converted into the maternity hospital, and taken home to live in Hednesford as a baby.
This is the actual house, long ago sold off. It was my parents' second Police House, the first of the pattern we were to live in for some years in several different places. To this day I recognise police houses as we drive past them on occasion.
When I was born Dad was a PC with Staffordshire Police Force. I'm not sure when he was promoted to sergeant; possibly when we moved to Stafford when I was three, or when we moved to Aldridge when I was five. In those days the Force owned enough properties to house almost all its officers - as late as 1973 you had to get the Chief Constable's permission to live anywhere not owned by the Police Authority. It meant that they could, and did, move officers around at little notice. I have no idea whether Dad had to apply for the jobs he got, or whether decisions were made on high, but it was rare for us as a family to have more than three weeks' notice of a move. By the time I started school, at almost five, we were in my third house, in Aldridge, now part of the West Midlands. It was exactly the same as the houses in Stafford and Hednesford.
We weren't there long - probably a year, as I certainly spent two years at my next school in Lichfield, by which time Dad was definitely a Sergeant. We lived at the top of a long, gentle hill, and I would walk to school on my own. It was a tiny school, of two classes, and I remember mainly being able to "cheat" on my tables in order to get extra time in the library corner.
I left the infants' school in the summer of '63, expecting to go to the junior school in the September. Two weeks into the summer holidays, though, an idiot in a Robin Reliant drove into us. My mother, lucky to survive, spent the summer in hospital; my brother and I moved in with her parents. Only the fact that I had a broken collar-bone kept me sane, as my Gran, who I loved very much, thought reading was a waste of time, and would have made me run around instead. Fortunately, I couldn't, so she had to let me read, though it worried her a lot.
We had barely returned home, and I had been two weeks in my junior school (age 7 - 11) when we moved again. This time it was back to Stafford, and to a house then on the edge of town, with a huge field on two sides of the garden. The house is exactly the same, according to Google Street View.
I started the new school two weeks into the term, and was soon in trouble for trying to do cursive writing, which we weren't supposed to do till the next year. This was the one time I remember having corporal punishment - a sharp slap on the thigh with a ruler. I was devastated.
I stayed at that school for three years, the longest time anywhere so far in my life, though we did move house halfway through. I think Dad must have made Inspector then, as we lived in a "Senior Officer's House" on the edge of the Police Headquarters Estate.
Our house overlooked the back of the main building; from my bedroom I could watch them training police horses (once one bucked its rider and bolted - great merriment for 9-year-old me) and the motorbikes doing an assault course. As children we had free run of the entire estate, including the space in front of the main building where the dogs did their stuff - a readily-available assault course for us!
I took my 11+ a year young, just before my 10th birthday, and was all geared up to go to Stafford Girls' High School when we moved again. Four terms in Uttoxeter, then two years in Stone, before finally going to Burton-on-Trent - two houses, but only the one school, where I actually completed my school education. Ironically, my parents stayed in that house for over a decade, far, far longer than in any other home so far in their marriage, but after I went to Durham I never really lived there full-time.
Since Durham I have lived in five places: my entire 34-year teaching career was spent in only four schools. My girls had the sort of stability I'd craved. I dunno if it did them good, but it was certainly different!
The policy of the police back then was to move ambitious officers around, at least in part so they didn't get too cosy with the local potentates. Mum and Dad bought their first owned house from the police authority in 1973; I very much doubt police houses of the type I grew up in still exist. The Sixties, not really Swinging for me, I was too young, really are another country.
I lived in the county of Staffordshire all my young life. I was born in Cannock, quite literally in the workhouse, which had been converted into the maternity hospital, and taken home to live in Hednesford as a baby.
This is the actual house, long ago sold off. It was my parents' second Police House, the first of the pattern we were to live in for some years in several different places. To this day I recognise police houses as we drive past them on occasion.
When I was born Dad was a PC with Staffordshire Police Force. I'm not sure when he was promoted to sergeant; possibly when we moved to Stafford when I was three, or when we moved to Aldridge when I was five. In those days the Force owned enough properties to house almost all its officers - as late as 1973 you had to get the Chief Constable's permission to live anywhere not owned by the Police Authority. It meant that they could, and did, move officers around at little notice. I have no idea whether Dad had to apply for the jobs he got, or whether decisions were made on high, but it was rare for us as a family to have more than three weeks' notice of a move. By the time I started school, at almost five, we were in my third house, in Aldridge, now part of the West Midlands. It was exactly the same as the houses in Stafford and Hednesford.
We weren't there long - probably a year, as I certainly spent two years at my next school in Lichfield, by which time Dad was definitely a Sergeant. We lived at the top of a long, gentle hill, and I would walk to school on my own. It was a tiny school, of two classes, and I remember mainly being able to "cheat" on my tables in order to get extra time in the library corner.
I left the infants' school in the summer of '63, expecting to go to the junior school in the September. Two weeks into the summer holidays, though, an idiot in a Robin Reliant drove into us. My mother, lucky to survive, spent the summer in hospital; my brother and I moved in with her parents. Only the fact that I had a broken collar-bone kept me sane, as my Gran, who I loved very much, thought reading was a waste of time, and would have made me run around instead. Fortunately, I couldn't, so she had to let me read, though it worried her a lot.
We had barely returned home, and I had been two weeks in my junior school (age 7 - 11) when we moved again. This time it was back to Stafford, and to a house then on the edge of town, with a huge field on two sides of the garden. The house is exactly the same, according to Google Street View.
I started the new school two weeks into the term, and was soon in trouble for trying to do cursive writing, which we weren't supposed to do till the next year. This was the one time I remember having corporal punishment - a sharp slap on the thigh with a ruler. I was devastated.
I stayed at that school for three years, the longest time anywhere so far in my life, though we did move house halfway through. I think Dad must have made Inspector then, as we lived in a "Senior Officer's House" on the edge of the Police Headquarters Estate.
Our house overlooked the back of the main building; from my bedroom I could watch them training police horses (once one bucked its rider and bolted - great merriment for 9-year-old me) and the motorbikes doing an assault course. As children we had free run of the entire estate, including the space in front of the main building where the dogs did their stuff - a readily-available assault course for us!
I took my 11+ a year young, just before my 10th birthday, and was all geared up to go to Stafford Girls' High School when we moved again. Four terms in Uttoxeter, then two years in Stone, before finally going to Burton-on-Trent - two houses, but only the one school, where I actually completed my school education. Ironically, my parents stayed in that house for over a decade, far, far longer than in any other home so far in their marriage, but after I went to Durham I never really lived there full-time.
Since Durham I have lived in five places: my entire 34-year teaching career was spent in only four schools. My girls had the sort of stability I'd craved. I dunno if it did them good, but it was certainly different!
The policy of the police back then was to move ambitious officers around, at least in part so they didn't get too cosy with the local potentates. Mum and Dad bought their first owned house from the police authority in 1973; I very much doubt police houses of the type I grew up in still exist. The Sixties, not really Swinging for me, I was too young, really are another country.